More and more California wines, including many of the finest, are going organic.

But you won't see it on most of their labels or in their ads. Call it their clean little secret.

High-end labels like Sinskey, Turley, Niebaum-Coppola and Araujo have embraced organic grape-growing with almost religious fervor. Altogether, 141 wine grape growers registered with the state as organic last year, up from 49 just four years earlier. Many more are growing their grapes organically but haven't bothered with certification, and others are moving in that direction.

"I think it's a sea change," marvels Frog's Leap's John Williams, a pioneer of the trend who is now watching his industry play catch up.

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Williams started growing his Zinfandel and other varietals organically in 1988. But like many vintners, Williams doesn't say so on his label and markets his wines for their quality, not for their organic grapes.

Part of that is his belief -- what's become gospel among his peers -- is that growing methods that are good for the environment also produce superior grapes, and that means better wine.

The rest is fear. Vintners know that for many wine drinkers, seeing "organic" anywhere near "wine" brings back the bad old days of the early organic movement like the memory of a gulp of oxidized Chardonnay.

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"It's the 'O' word -- the old idea that . . . we are going to have to spend a lot more, and it's not going to be as good," says Williams. "I think it's going to take a long while to wear down."

Mention organically grown wines to sophisticated Bay Area wine drinkers -- ones who enjoy, say, Turley's big Zinfandels without realizing their provenance -- and you hear gasps and concerns about finding alfalfa sprouts in the glass.

Master sommelier Larry Stone of Rubicon in San Francisco, and one of the top professionals in the country, routinely includes organically grown wines from Europe and the United States on lists he creates for renowned restaurants,

including Roxanne's in Larkspur. He puts it this way:

"It's the bane of organic and biodynamic wines in this country: In the past,

(among) people practicing those techniques, the wines haven't been of high quality. Today that's not true. Some of the most incredible wines in the world are organic and even beyond that."

When you talk about "organic wine," terms can get confusing -- especially because most people, vintners included, commonly lump them all together under that name. California and other states have set up categories, differentiating between wines made from organically grown grapes and those where the winemaking is also completely organic.

Starting in October, when the first national organic standards go into effect, the categories will be the same in all 50 states.

Very few wineries make completely organic wine under the federal definition,

because that means they can add no sulfites. Sulfur dioxide, added in winemaking, stabilizes wine and keeps it from breaking down in the bottle. Most winemakers say adding some sulfites is essential to good wines.

Under the rules, "organic wines" are made from organically grown grapes and are processed without the yeasts, sulfites and any of some 500 additives and agents allowed in winemaking. If egg whites are used to clarify the wine, the eggs must be organic.

If sulfites are added, the rules allow vintners to say only that their wines are "made from organically grown grapes," even if every other step is organic. Some complain that this leaves consumers with no way of distinguishing wines that are processed more naturally from those tweaked and manipulated through fermentation and aging.

The trend, which has its roots in France, is decidedly toward growing grapes organically, and making wines more naturally -- but stopping short of legal "organic wine."

"It's more acceptable than it was before," explains Napa Valley vineyard manager Mark Neal. He supervises grape-growing on 2,000 acres; about 400 are now organic or well on their way, up from 35 a decade ago.

All are planted in Cabernet Sauvignon, a relatively easy-to-grow varietal. The grapes go into wines made by Heitz, Grgich, Liparita, Duckhorn and others.

"There are more organic materials available, they're doing a better job and more people feel it's the way to go culturally, not just agriculturally," Neal says.

Most of those going organic are small wineries, not the big growers out in the Central Valley. And they still make up a tiny percentage of all the wine grapes grown in California.

Of 424,000 acres bearing wine grapes in California last year, only 6,875 were registered as organic -- just 1.6 percent of the total, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture. Still, it's up from just 1,200 acres in 1997.

Typical of the trend is Robert Sinskey, who makes Pinot Noir near Yountville. He began converting to organic grape-growing in 1991, and completed the three-year certification process on 147 acres last year. He grows most of his grapes in the Carneros district, where cool, damp weather makes for good Pinot grapes, but also means more mildew and botrytis -- extra challenges for organic growers.

Techniques are similar to any kind of organic farming: careful tending of the vines, use of organic soil enhancements and nontoxic pest controls, cover crops, natural predators like hawks and owls, and good bugs to eat the bad ones.

Sinskey said growing his grapes organically has made his wines better.

"We found that organics have helped us be more consistent and produced better fermentations. Everything's healthier. The fruit's there," he says.

At Spottswoode, Niebaum-Coppola and Frog's Leap, everyone who's embraced organic growing says the same thing: It makes better wine. Some, including Sinskey and Williams, are going beyond organic into biodynamic farming, a more intensive regimen.

But Sinskey's label, while mentioning "sustainably farmed," doesn't use the word organic. Neither does Niebaum-Coppola's or Frog's Leap's. You won't find these wines in the "organic" wine shelves in your supermarket or jug shop. Restaurant wine lists rarely mention it.

Spottswoode's back label used to say organic grapes, according to Beth Novak Milliken, who runs the family winery. They dropped it rather than adopting clunky wording that the government required, she says.

Spottswoode, which makes Cabernet and Chardonnay wines in St. Helena, has been farming organically since 1985 and is proud of a reputation for treating the land right, Milliken said. But, like her peers, she adds, Spottswoode wants its wines to be known first for their quality.

"I think if people see 'organic wine' on the label, it tends to scare people off a little bit, or limits who you sell your wine to," Milliken says.

At Niebaum-Coppola, organic farming started in the early '90s, after Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters put a bug in the ear of her good friend Eleanor Coppola, according to director of winemaking Scott McLeod. But the label on the winery's prized Rubicon, and its other wines, doesn't say so. Marketing outside California is one reason.

"I think the California audience is a very different audience than in other parts of this country," McLeod says. Farming organically is "our belief, but we don't think that's something we want to put on others."

He's also concerned that having organic on the label would limit his pesticide options should a devastating insect invade.

"We don't want to put Rubicon out as an organic wine and then lose the vineyard to the glassy-winged sharpshooter," McLeod says.

All that reticence may give way as word leaks out that wines made from organically grown grapes are really good, the vintners say.

"When people get the message that this is all about quality, then this is going to completely flip," says Frog's Leap's John Williams.

That flip is underway, according to multiple signs in the Bay Area.

One is climbing sales at Bonterra in Mendocino County, which is one of the few wineries that's gone all-out for the organic market. Started under the Fetzer family and now owned by Brown Foreman, Bonterra is the biggest U.S. producer of wines made from organically grown grapes. Its wines dominate the "organic" shelves in the wine section at stores like Whole Foods and their front labels proclaim "organically grown grapes."

Since Bonterra released its first vintage in 1992, sales have grown steadily by 6 to 8 percent a year, hitting 155,000 cases last year, says general manager and winemaker Robert Blue.

He sees the difference 10 years have made when he talks to restaurant sommeliers and consumer groups.

"In the beginning if I said, 'This wine is made from organically grown grapes,' people looked at you funny," Blue says. "I get real acceptance and much more openness today."

Another sign of organic acceptance has come at Beverages and More in San Rafael, the largest of the chain's 29 stores. Manager Ron Porter recently brought in seven organically grown wines from France and Italy, priced at $10- $20, put them on display and let shoppers taste. People liked them and snapped them up so fast that the chain's Albany store followed suit, he says.

"We (in Marin) have a good discerning public and the organic wines have been a hit," Porter says. "It's now becoming accepted more in the mainstream. We're seeing more and more much better wines."

Change is also in the air at Chambers and Chambers in San Francisco, a distributor of brands such as Turley and Araujo to restaurants like Fifth Floor, Boulevard and Jardiniere. Of 140 wines the company distributes, 30 or so are organic or biodynamic. "I bet you 10 years ago we didn't have any," says Chambers vice president Carol Hastings.

About 18 months ago, Chambers' catalog began mentioning if wineries were growing grapes organically or biodynamically and if they were certified.

"A lot of people were asking," Hastings notes.

On the other hand, she says, "One thing we still find is that organic wines don't sell well off the organic shelf. People don't go there. They want to buy these off the regular shelf. If the wine and the marketing and the label are good, then they're glad it's organic."

No one keeps track of sales of organically grown wines in the United States.

But a survey by the Organic Trade Association suggests that sales of organic wines and beer are keeping up with the hot pace of organic foods in general, which has been shooting up 20 to 25 percent a year.

The small survey predicted that organic wine/beer sales would increase by 38 percent a year for the next three years.

Still, Niebaum-Coppola's McLeod says the surge in organic viticulture makes up just a tiny part of winemaking in California.

In part, that's because getting certified takes a lot of time, paperwork, and a willingness to let inspectors in every year. Not everyone will do all that, he says.

Most organic growers come to it from a philosophical framework. McLeod thinks more might take steps if there were an intermediate standard, a low-fat version of the organic standard's non-fat.

Even then, he says, most produce growers are all about price, and grapes don't command more per ton just for being organic.

Talking about "organic" and wine can be complicated. Here are some basic definitions, under new federal organic standards:

-- Organic grapes. Grapes grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or weed-killers. Sulfur can be used in vineyards. Vineyard must be certified.

-- Made with organic grapes. Wines made from grapes grown in certified vineyards can say this on the label. Also called "organically grown wines" and,

often in Europe, "organic wines."

-- Organic wine. Both the grapes and the winemaking must be certified organic. Only organic additives allowed. No sulfites can be added. Can say "organic wine" on the label.

-- Sulfites. Sulfur-based preservatives that occur naturally in grapes and are added by most winemakers to keep wine from going bad when bottled. Since these are allergens, a label saying "contains sulfites" must be on bottles of wine that contain 10 parts per million or more. When none are added during winemaking, the label can say so, but there may still be some natural ones in the wine.

-- Sustainable farming. Not fully organic, but using many organic techniques to preserve the environment.

-- Biodynamic. An intensified version of organic farming, commonly called "beyond organic" and used increasingly by grape growers.